The Redemption of Althalus

Rating:
Summary: I TRULY ENJOYED THIS BOOK
Review: I am a HUGE fan of Eddings and have read and re-read both the Garion series and the Sparhawk series and I really enjoyed seeing some new things from him. I was drawn in just the same as the other stories. My only complaint is that it does seem a little dry in spots, but on the whole is an excellent read. I love his sense of humor that comes across and will read this again and again the same as the other two. Anyone who found this lacking is way too locked into the Garion series and needs to allow for some new avenues for Eddings to go into.

Rating:
Summary: other reviewers blow it out your ear!!!!
Review: I've been reading eddings works since I was fifteen. I loved his work then i still love it including the Althalus book.First let me just say that this is steeped in real myth,and think that those that did not like it probably never read any of the myths from the Far East and didn't understand how the characters interacted with one another as if one had actually read about three hindu gods one a creator,one a preserver,and one a destroyer might.If you look up any of the names, Nagaharesh is the hindu city of demons and Daeva is demon in Hindu.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't get past the excerpt!
Review: The Belgariad/Mallorean are STILL my favorite books - after more than 10 reads! I read the excerpt of this new book - blech!!! This excerpt sounds like it was written by a 15 year old!!! Just try getting past the paragraph on slavery!!! It gave me a headache! I've read better from a Harlequin Romance!!!

I'm glad I didn't purchase this first - I'd have been sorely disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Garbage!
Review: I cannot even express to you my extreme disappointment in this novel. I am a huge Eddings' fan and was eagerly anticipating a new book. I adored the Garion stories. Let me assure you -every single bad review listed before mine is %100 correct - ie. bad (oh my very bad) dialogue, bad plot, zero character development, choppy, uninteresting, cloying, etc. Pure stubborness drove me to finish this book but it only got worse as I continued to read.

My only solace is that I borrowed the book from my public library and didn't shell out money for this tripe.

Rating:
Summary: I feel unclean.
Review: Save your time. Save your money.

By 50 pages into it and on through the end, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't identify with a single character.

Little plot. No tension. No danger. No subtlety.

Run, reader. Run for your life.

Rating:
Summary: I really doubt this is true Eddings
Review: I've been a big fan of Eddings for a long, long time. I truly think that the Belgariad is one of the best fantasy series ever written. It is truly funny, with an interesting story, and great, distinct characters. Though it is not a Tolkien fantasy, then again why should everything be that anyway?

This Althalus book his a hollow shell of the work of Eddings. In fact, I would seriously question whether it was even written by the same person who wrote The Belgariad. There was a rumor a while back that Eddings was ill, after all. For whatever reason, perhaps to milk success, maybe someone else is writing the books now. Who knows?

Regardless, this book is a travesty. It basically takes the bare bones elements of previous books and plunks them down without benefit of the things that made them entertaining the first time around. Funny little lines that are not so funny without the surrounding story elements. Situations that are not amusing taken out of the story where they originally were.

This is all a very sad thing. A great producer of really good books has, for whatever reason, fallen apart. This is a very bad book. If you like Eddings, don't read it. If you have read it, don't mistake this sorry excuse for a book for the usual product of Eddings in the previous works.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad for a "one-book epic"
Review: Yes, the book has many drawbacks that an avid Eddings fan like myself didn't expect to see, but after reading the book I can understand why it is the way it is.

Eddings wanted to write a "one-book epic" (perhaps as an attempt to prove that it isn't an oxymoron). In order to do that, they had to compress a huge story into one book. The result? Scant detail, repetitive dialouge, shallow characters, complicated ideas not explained very well, and a general sense that everything has happened WAY too fast as was WAY too easy to do.

i.e. In most of their previous books, much character developement, interesting dialouge and detail additions were made while the group traveled together (and they traveled A LOT). They would laugh, joke, confess, deduce, admire, reflect, everything that made the story real. However, in a 1-book epic, things much be compressed, and Eddings removed the time consuming journeys, and replaced it with "The House". Thus, he saved paper, but also sacraficed much of the story.

I love Eddings, and will not let one under-ripe book throw me off. Just don't read it expecting the quality demonstrated in pervious efforts.

Rating:
Summary: Was this a first draft????
Review: One of the first(if not the first) fantasy epics I read was the Belgariad and it was amazing,every time I read it I was transported to an incredible world unparalelled in my experience. So what happened?? Nothing the Eddings have written since then has managed to live up to that.The Mallorean was still good but so much of the repetition from the first series(right down to the now increasingly banal dialouge) became a little tedious. The Sparhawk series was an interesting departure but was not sufficiently enthralling that I have ever felt compelled to read it more than once. Now here comes The Redemption of Althalus,and the only question is can I keep my critism down to less than the thousand words allowed.Here goes. The characters are nothing new, in fact they are all too familiar,just mix a little Silk,a touch of Barak,a pinch of Polgara, you get the idea.Of course those other characters at least had the benefit of development, whereas Althalus and Andine and Leitha et al. weren't even developed enough to be 2-dimensional. The dialouge was atrocious.As lame and cloying as it got in the Mallorean this was worse. As for Tension, suspense, forget it,non-existent. There was never any sense that they were ever in any danger of failing, after all they have a god telling them what to do how could they not succeed? The villain? never saw him.In the Belgariad Torak was an ominous dark presence always lurking in the background,he was pure evil and we felt it.As for daevar or what ever his name is, not a peep,no menace, no lurking,nothin'. Finally I sort of have a bone to pick about the dialouge.As sort of lame as it was,it was sort of made a lot worse by the sort of constant use of two usually sort of innocuous words.SORT OF...., I get the feeling that the Eddings made a bulk purchase of these words because they SORT OF jam them in wherever they can. This a noticable trait in the Mallorean but it gets taken to the next level in "Althalus". It could never just be"isn't that the way we want it?" no instead we get "isn't that sort of the way we want it?" or "he's sort of cute" ,I think you get the idea. I miss Belgarion, he was fun.I think the Eddings should write more about his adventures only this time he doesn't have to save the universe.No rather I think he should embark on a crusade to hunt down the SORT OF people who write books like The Redemption of Althalus.

Rating:
Summary: Epic Fantasy? I think not.
Review: The book calls itself a one volume epic novel. For those of us who love epic fantasy, and I *love* epic fantasy the only thing epic about it is how MONUMENTALLY BAD it was!

I ask myself: why didn't I read the online reviews? Well, take it from me, this book wasn't simply a waste of money, it was a waste of life. To think I could have used the ten or so hours it took to read the book doing something more interesting like helping my in-laws shovel their new patio. I'll never be able to demand of refund of my life!

By page 191 I decided I was going to throw this book in the fireplace, although I struggled through until the end. I have only one question after reading the novel: Mr. and Mrs. Eddings are you not ashamed of yourselves? You bloody well ought to be! I for one will never read another Eddings book again.

Often, I've ready Sci-fi/Fantasy and thought to myself, "bad book, interesting ideas though," and concluded the book was worth reading despite not liking it. Don't be suckered in by the description of Epic fantasy, this book was bad and doesn't deserve to be read.

In fact, I felt so tainted by the book I reread the LOTR for the umpteenth time, followed immediately by Stephenson's Snow Crash for the fourth time. Even after the purging I still feel a bit soiled. I may read the Silmarillion for the second time.

If 104 reviews wasn't enough, take the word of a consumer of Sci-fi/Fantasy: Don't buy this book!!! Please don't encourage the Eddings to publish more drivel by giving them money. We'll all be better off in the long run.

Good reading, and best wishes.

PS. Good news, readers. The book was commended to the fireplace after all.

Rating:
Summary: ...really good...
Review: Last December, after a long period of anticipation, I received Redemption in the mail from amazon. Com. My friend and I literally fought over who would get to read the first few pages--both of us being avid Eddings fans. My expectations were high and I wasn't disappointed; though, the book was not exactly what I had envisioned from the offset.

Redemption, of course, contains all of the usual Eddings' mastery: richly detailed world, humor, entrapping story, and the kind of characters you become attached too. However, throughout the entire book--especially the last two thirds--there permeates a certain sense of in-completion. Like, while writing the book, the Eddings' being long connoisseurs of multi-volume epics--did not know just what to do with a stand alone novel. It seems that their instincts told them to more fully cover the story, but, wanting to keep the length at one book, they had cut out a lot of material that would have further developed the story to a better ending and done away with the 'rush to hurry up and get things done'. As a result the book seems somewhat . . . choppy.

However, I loved this book. In the Belgariad, does Garion ever grate on your nerves? I don't know about you, but he sure does mine. I have always preferred grown-up type characters in books simply because, quite often, teenage characters are portrayed horribly. Hey, I'm a teenager myself, but a lot different than some authors seem to think that all teens are like. In Redemption the main character--Althalus by name, but you couldn't guess that could you?--is somewhat of a combination between three of Eddings' previous characters: Sparhawk, Belgarath, and Silk. Those just happen to be some of my favorite characters from Eddings' previous books; so it is no surprise that I really liked Althalus. That, however, is not the only reason I love this book. Simply, the book is a great combination of most of Eddings old 'magic' and some new as well. If you like other Eddings books, your sure to at least think this is good, and you'll probably think that its great.